


Closing In

by silver_fish



Series: bad things happen bingo [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Claustrophobia, Codependency, False Memories, Guilt, Harry-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Panic Attacks, Post-War, Touch-Starved, Trauma, Whump, predictably i mean this is me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-22 16:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22718935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: Harry supposes he’ll never know how they learned about the cupboard under the stairs. He also supposes he’ll never know how they managed to make him so afraid of it, all these years later.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Series: bad things happen bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634152
Comments: 36
Kudos: 304
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Closing In

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laphicets) / [tumblr](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)
> 
> prompt fill on my bad things happen bingo card! request was: facing their phobia with any of the golden trio's gen of characters. i always thought that harry ought to be at least a bit uncomfortable with small spaces...so i wanted to explore what might have happened if something had made him more so. i actually went a lot harder than i meant with that. but. well. it was a lot of fun, at least. not my best work, either, but an enjoyable one to write. anyway, it's potentially quite ooc, and for that i apologize!
> 
> tags are content warnings! please don't read if this will upset you. big cw's are for child abuse and torture but they are never shown explicitly, only talked about at length/recalled. other than that, i hope you enjoy! :)

It’s the smell.

He can’t really say why it bothers him, but it does. Citrus. It’s a pretty standard scent for Muggle cleaning supplies, if he remembers correctly. Aunt Petunia liked it, but sometimes it made Harry’s nose itch, and he’d be left with the sensation of choking, like the citrus smell had permeated into his lungs and was killing him slowly from the inside out.

They don’t use those sorts of things anymore, though. Household cleaning charms will do the trick just fine, and, besides, Ron and Hermione never learned to clean, not the way he did.

It was strange, at first. Sometimes he would grow angry with them when there were dishes in the sink, when the counters hadn’t been wiped down. He would find a book resting on the cushion of the couch and _loathe_ Hermione for it, wonder why she couldn’t be bothered to pick up after herself, even if she really had just gone to use the loo and would be back in two minutes.

He never said anything, though, just started cleaning up after them. They didn’t think to do it, but he did. He had never considered himself a neat person, but he is obsessive about their flat, these days, paranoid that if just one thing is out of place, everything will come crashing down around him.

Sometimes, they do anyway. Sometimes, he cannot think but to remember, or he fills with a deep sickness he knows is associated with a memory he can’t quite recall. They don’t always know what will cause it. Harry knows his best friends get sick of it, but he doesn’t know how to make it stop. Sometimes, it is just too much. Sometimes, he gets lost in everything that is no longer around him.

He isn’t sure why the citrus smell bothers him, but he knows that it does. The meal had been Hermione’s request, something a little more time-consuming than usual to keep him occupied while she and Ron were gone. They are busy people, after all, with busy lives. Quite the contrast to Harry, who doesn’t seem to have a life anymore at all.

It’s lemon, though. Lemon. Like the cleaning supplies Aunt Petunia used to store in the closet upstairs, because the cupboard underneath them was occupied by Harry.

When Ron comes home—because he comes home first, almost always—it is to the smell of burning food in the kitchen, Harry sat on the floor with his eyes shut tight, trying and failing to count to eight like the Mind Healer told him to.

And then the smell is gone, along with the burning sensation in his throat. When he finally convinces himself to open his eyes, he sees the worried face of his best friend hovering over him.

“All right?” Ron asks, but of course they both know the answer.

Harry sighs unhappily, dropping his gaze. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Slowly, Ron sits down beside him. Their legs brush together, just briefly. The small touch seems to light a fire deep within Harry, and he leans closer, craving the comfort of it.

Ron wraps his arm around him, pulling him into his side. Harry knows it’s rather pathetic, but he can’t be bothered to be embarrassed by it anymore. He feels rather like a small child at times, not at all nineteen. Hermione says that maybe it’s all right for him to feel that way, given that he had his childhood taken away from him before he could really even make a claim to it.

“Do you know what it was?” asks Ron, softly. Harry had never really thought of Ron as gentle before, but ever since _that day_ , he has been more careful, as if he thinks Harry might break at any moment. As if he worries, if he is any harder on him, it will be his fault when he does.

“Lemon.” He breathes in deeply, relishing in Ron’s scent. It is far from citrus. This is real. He cannot choke on this.

“Sorry?”

“The smell. I don’t know what happened. But it was the smell.”

“Oh.” Ron is quiet for a moment, as if he doesn’t know how to react to that. Finally, he says, “D’you still want to eat?”

It’s a funny question. Harry doesn’t really “want” anything right now, except maybe this closeness they’re sharing right now.

“Not really,” is what he says, though. “Feel a little queasy.”

“All right.” A pause. “We should get off the floor.”

Harry shakes his head desperately and makes a grab for Ron’s hand. “Please don’t,” he says, aware he is begging but not having the capacity to care anymore. “Just stay with me, please.”

“I’ll still be here, mate,” Ron soothes. “Just gonna move somewhere more comfortable, all right? Look, keep holding my hand, I won’t let you go.”

A part of Harry doesn’t believe him, but it is largely overtaken by the knowledge that Ron has never let him go. That he always came back, even though he and Hermione still mourn for it, say that they were “too late.” Harry doesn’t think so. He is here, after all, and though he sometimes feels a little crazy, he knows he is mostly sane.

They feel bad for him, though. They feel like it’s their fault that he broke. But Harry knows better. He will never blame them for any of this, even when he is angry with them, even when he gets so lost he can’t even remember they’re there.

Harry lets Ron help him up, and then they move into the next room and Ron lowers them down on the couch, wrapping Harry tighter once they are situated. Harry’s face presses against his chest while Ron rests his chin on the top of Harry’s head. He knows that Ron is doing it so that when the door opens, he can make eye contact with Hermione first, but he doesn’t mind.

Two years ago, all of this would have disgusted him, the very thought of being taken care of so thoroughly, being so needy, in constant want of touch. That was before, though, and this is now. He tends to think of his days, now, as before _that day_ and after it, but the ones just before _that day_ are all blurred together, months he has lost but that still haunt him through all hours of each new day.

So, he lets it happen. There is no way to tell how much time passes before the door opens and admits Hermione. She and Ron, presumably, have a wordless conversation above him, and then Hermione is kneeling down in front of him, hands on his knees.

“Harry,” she says, but he doesn’t want to look at her, doesn’t want to see the disappointment on her face.

“Harry,” she repeats, leaning closer into him, her hands sliding up to his thighs.

He looks at her, then. He can’t help it.

“We should talk about it,” she tells him quietly. “Healer Mallow wants you to try, that’s all.”

She looks so very tired, as she often does these days. She works long hours at the Ministry, then often comes home to find Harry as he is now. He is rarely the person she remembers from Hogwarts anymore, the person she went back to save _that day_. He wonders, sometimes, if she ever regrets it.

But then she says, “We love you. We just want to help,” and Harry’s breath catches in his throat, as if often seems to do when they say things like this.

“I’m sorry,” he manages. “I’m sorry, Hermione, I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh, it’s okay.” One of her hands comes up to cup his cheek, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I know you didn’t. This isn’t your fault.” Briefly, her eyes fill with steely rage, but it dies away as soon as Harry tries to pull away from her. “It’s okay, Harry, we’re not going anywhere. Can you tell us about it?”

“Lemon,” Ron remembers. “The smell. What’s it mean?”

Harry’s grip on his hand tightens. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know, I think it’s the cupboard, it’s always the bloody cupboard—”

“It’s okay,” Hermione says again. “Why do you think that, Harry?”

He shudders involuntarily, feeling suddenly very small. “My aunt always made me clean, I dunno, I just thought—it just felt like—Muggles, they choose these _smells_ …”

Understanding dawns in Hermione’s eyes, but Harry knows that Ron is probably feeling rather lost. He finds, though, that the words die out long before they even reach his tongue, and he just can’t bring himself to explain more.

“That wasn’t fair of your aunt,” Hermione tells him gently. “She shouldn’t have used you like that. She should have treated you better. She should have done the cleaning herself.”

Harry will never know exactly how they learned so much about his childhood. He suspects that these are all things he has told them—the weeks after _that day_ are blurry, recognizable in his memory only as consistent panic, terror, the feeling that all of this would fall away at any minute and he would be would be back in that cupboard again, just waiting for someone to come by and pull him out—but he doubts he was ever very eloquent about any of it. A lot of it must be guesswork, but they don’t seem to need him to fill in any blanks for them.

His childhood never bothered him before _that day_ , but now he sometimes feels like his aunt and uncle were eviler even than Voldemort himself was. He can’t tell which of his memories are from them, though, or from the Death Eaters. What happened when he was a child and what happened a year ago.

“What are you thinking?” Hermione asks.

He shakes his head. It is beginning to ache quite fiercely.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “It’s okay. Let’s just… You need to eat, Harry, we need to eat.”

This, of all things, is what makes his eyes blur. He blinks rapidly, looking down at her hands on his legs. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “It burned. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Some part of his mind is telling him that ruining a meal results in a prolonged Cruciatus, but if he apologizes for it enough, it won’t be as bad as if he doesn’t. There is something wrong with the thought, though, something he cannot quite identify.

Ron’s other hand comes up to stroke his hair. He leans into it, focussing on that rather than the feeling of deep shame that is opening up within him, the terror that rests just below his tongue at the prospect of punishment.

“We’re not mad,” Hermione promises. “Not at all. These things happen sometimes. It’s okay. Just breathe, just like Healer Mallow told you…”

She breathes with him, until there is no more apparent danger of him falling back into a panic again. Harry still glued to Ron’s side, they all rise together and return to the kitchen. Ron separates from Harry, with it an almost physical pain, but once they are both seated around the table he reaches forward and grabs Harry’s hand again, entwining their fingers.

They don’t speak as Hermione makes a pot of soup behind them. Each of her footfalls sounds heavy, exhausted, like she is barely remaining upright anymore. Ron, too, looks tired, but when Harry worriedly meets his eyes, he offers a smile.

“Don’t look like that,” he chastises. “No matter what you say, we aren’t going anywhere.”

Harry looks away from him, guilt gnawing at him from within. Ron and Hermione are the last people he wants to hurt, but he just doesn’t know how to make all of this stop.

Hermione serves them and then sits down on Harry’s other side. They rarely position themselves any other way. Harry thinks they don’t know he notices, but he is simply too ashamed to admit that he appreciates it. He thinks it may be a bit for themselves too, so they don’t have to worry so much that he will be taken from them again. He knows they regret letting him go out alone that day, but what could they have done? It might have been any of them, Harry thinks, and if that’s the case then he’s rather glad it was him. He doesn’t know if he could live with the pain of knowing one of them had gone through what he did in those months.

“We’ll both be home tomorrow,” Hermione says, gesturing between Ron and herself. “I know Healer Mallow wants to continue the exposure therapy, but if you think—”

“No,” Harry says firmly. “I’ll do it tomorrow. Putting it off won’t help.”

This has all been part of a gradual plan for months now. He’s proven highly resistant to many types of therapy in the past year, but his Mind Healer has been quite insistent that they persist. Harry often thinks it would be easier to just give up, but he knows that Ron and Hermione feel better knowing that he’s seeing someone. Sometimes, he worries that they think he’s ridiculous for being afraid of cupboards, but they never give any indication of such a thing.

They started, a few months back, with imagining a small space, closing his eyes and pretending there are walls all around him. Since then, Healer Mallow has had him stand in numerous small places, first with lights on and then lights off. It’s helped, a bit, but she has encouraged him to explore the spaces within his home that might make him panic, like the pantry or the linen closet, without the time restraints characteristic of their sessions together. Ron and Hermione have been given her permission to help him, granted they follow her instructions to the dot. The longer he can stay in a small space without freaking out, the better.

She has expressed to him that he’s been a difficult patient. “Complex trauma,” she called it. “You’ve lived with this your whole life, and it’s taken a rather serious toll.”

But he doesn’t think he has, and he always tries to tell her so. “I don’t know how they found out about the cupboard I slept in,” he’ll say. “I don’t even know why they thought it would do this to me. It never bothered me before.”

She thinks it did, though. She thinks that, maybe, his claustrophobia developed longer ago than this past year, and he just never noticed it. He says that’s bloody stupid, because how could he not notice a _phobia_?

It doesn’t matter, anyway. The problem is that the cupboard follows him everywhere. Anything can trigger it. None of them know what he should expect, if he should expect anything at all.

“You shouldn’t stretch yourself too thin,” Hermione’s saying. “I’m really worried about you. This is the third time in five days.”

He looks away from her, swallowing back his guilt.

“But it’s better,” he says quietly. “Better than it was.”

“It is,” Ron agrees. Harry doesn’t need to be looking to see the glance he shares with Hermione. “But it might be a bad week, mate. What if it gets worse?”

There is always that risk, though, Healer Mallow says. That he will sit in the closet in his flat one day in the dark and he will regress completely, until he is the same broken mess he was right after _that day_. She says it’s unlikely, but not impossible. That the human brain is complicated, and unfortunately there is no spell that can make it less so.

“It’s just hard to see you like this,” Hermione frets. “There’s so much more to this than the claustrophobia, I just don’t want to give you more stress when you already look so worn down.”

His eyes begin to sting again. He bites his lip, hard.

“Maybe we should owl Healer Mallow,” Ron suggests. “See what she thinks.”

Harry shakes his head.

“Why not?” asks Hermione.

He swallows, hoping his voice will not crack with the emotion lumped in his throat. “It’s not as bad as you’re saying. Please don’t owl her.”

“Harry—”

“Please.”

She quiets, but she still looks upset. His stomach twists painfully with the knowledge that the look on her face right now is all his fault.

“Let’s just finish eating, then,” Ron says. “Turn in early tonight.”

It is something they are all agreeable to, at least. All throughout their pathetic meal, Ron maintains his contact with Harry and Hermione watches him very closely, more aware even than he is of the way his hands still shake, the blanked pain in his eyes. Hermione and Ron let him clean up after dinner, the Muggle way, while they stay at the table and have a long, whispered conversation with each other. He knows they’re talking about him, of course he does. And he knows that they know he knows it, too. He just doesn’t have the energy to be angry about it anymore, not the way he would have been before _that day_.

But they’re not saying anything bad, he’s sure. They worry, that’s all. Under their breaths, they decide together how they will take care of him tonight and tomorrow, if they will let him take Dreamless Sleep tonight or not, if he really will want to step into that cupboard tomorrow, whether or not he _should_. This is the only loss of control he can deal with anymore. Sometimes, he even thinks he likes it, letting them make all the decisions. As long as they tell him, at least.

When the kitchen is clean, they lead him to the room they all share. This, too, is a measure they have implemented out of fear for his safety. In the beginning, they all slept separately, but the other two rooms in the flat go on, now, unused, except to hold Ron’s and Hermione’s belongings that don’t fit in this one.

These are things he doesn’t tell Healer Mallow about, because he knows she would try to make it stop, would tell him that it’s okay to ask for help, but too much dependency will only make things harder. He doesn’t care. He thinks that, if Ron and Hermione left him for too long at a time, he might go back into that cupboard and never come out. Besides, it is not _only_ about him; they are always touching him, always reassuring themselves that he is still there, that he won’t be taken away from them again.

The war changed them all, of course. But it was the kidnapping that made everything as they are now. Sometimes, Harry still thinks about the war, yes, but mostly he remembers his time in captivity after Voldemort’s death, at the hands of his relatives. He cannot tell what is what anymore, but everything between the cupboard at Privet Drive and that horrifying replication of it seems like something out of another person’s life.

Hermione helps Harry undress and put on the pyjamas Ron hands to her. He could do it himself, but he appreciates the moments of vulnerability he can share with them, a reminder that vulnerability is not an inherent precursor to pain.

“No Dreamless Sleep?” he asks.

Ron shakes his head. “Not tonight, mate. Had it too much this week already.”

He nods. He knew that, but a part of him hoped that maybe Ron and Hermione would let him have it anyway. But they don’t want to add to his problems, either. Dreamless Sleep addiction rates have gone up tenfold since the end of the war, but Healers are largely at a loss with how to deal with it. Hermione is always saying that it’s ridiculous how uninformed the wizarding world is on addiction, but all Harry really knows about it is that addicts are just a step better than he is in his aunt’s view. Sometimes, she would say things like “You’re lucky we don’t just lock you out” or “Speak again and we’ll turn you to the streets, boy.” She liked to say he was crazy, unhinged, comparable to the addicts she scorned so heavily, people she felt deserved no help, no sympathy.

He wonders about her sometimes, when his mind is clear enough. Wonders what she would think if she could see him now, teetering on this thin line of sanity. Wonders if this is what the word “irony” means, or if it is really not so funny at all.

He is the first in bed and under the covers, and then Ron and Hermione focus on their own bedtime rituals before lying on either side of him, touching, always touching. It helps him fall asleep, but sleep is never a reprieve anymore, if it ever even was.

As he loses touch with his surroundings in the bedroom, drifting into his subconscious, he hears noises, laughter, raised voices, angry with him for something he does not remember doing. There’s that smell, like mildew, the feeling of blood on his skin, the pain of dehydration and hunger he grew accustomed to when he was very small…

He never sees anything, not anymore. Not since _that day_. He used to dream of his best friends and their families, of all the people he watched die in a war that, deep down, he knew was all his fault. But now it is just the sensation of being trapped, the voices of his captors—Death Eaters? His aunt and uncle? He can never identify them, and he wakes scrambling desperately for air, to be able to breathe again without terror splitting him open from within. He does not know, always, what he is afraid of. If it is the cupboard itself, or everything that happened every time someone opened the door of it.

Each time he wakes, Ron or Hermione or both of them will be awake too, will whisper sweet reassurances to him, will hold him until he falls back asleep again, certain that he is not in the cupboard, that they will never let him go back to it.

And in the morning, they are all exhausted. The only nights they get reprieve are the ones where Harry has been given Dreamless Sleep, because then they know there is no chance he will wake up in distress. Even on nights he doesn’t without the aid of the potion, he knows Ron and Hermione sleep poorly, just waiting in case he does.

This is a bad night, because of his episode in the kitchen that evening. He doesn’t remember everything when he wakes for the final time, but he does know that it feels as though he has gotten no sleep at all. Beside him, Ron slumbers on, but Hermione smiles down at him from where she is sitting up, leaned against the headboard, reading a book.

“How long have you been awake?” he asks, sitting up himself in order to get closer to her. She dog ears the page she is on and sets the book aside, wrapping him in her arms, pressing her nose into his hair.

“I couldn’t fall asleep again,” she murmurs. Then, when he tenses: “It’s not your fault, Harry, none of this is your fault. It’s okay. I’m so glad you’re here.”

His throat burns, and, suddenly, he gets the feeling like he is going to cry. He does, sometimes. Randomly, seemingly for no reason at all. Healer Mallow says that’s healthy, normal, even, but Harry doesn’t really understand it. He did not cry as a child, not as far as he can recall. Crying meant punishment, but there was always a sort of sadistic glee when his captors reduced him to tears. He remembers them pulling his fingernails off, once, one by one, because he cried. What was it they always said? “Freaks don’t get to cry,” even when they are hungry, even when they are all alone.

He manages to swallow back the feeling now, though. He doesn’t think Hermione will rip his fingernails off, but his hands are suddenly aching and he has to check to ascertain that his fingernails are, in fact, still there.

Hermione must think something is wrong because she holds him more tightly still. “I love you,” she says. “It’ll be okay, Harry. You’ll get through this too.”

He pulls back a bit in order to see her face, offering a small smile.

“I’m all right,” he promises. “You should get more sleep.”

She shakes her head. “I’m okay. Are you hungry?”

Knowing she’s only asking him because they both need to eat, he nods and she disentangles herself from him, cautious as she gets out of bed so as to not disturb Ron. He gets up after her and she picks out some clothes for him to wear, which he accepts gratefully. Once they are both dressed, they head to the kitchen and Hermione puts the kettle on while Harry scours the cupboards and fridge for something to cook.

He does most of the cooking, even though there is a part of him that thinks it ought to be bad for him, much like the smell of floor cleaner apparently is. Before _that day_ , though, he did all the cooking too. He wasn’t working then, either, and he was better at it than Ron and Hermione. Hermione thinks that he can do it now because before the kidnapping, he had already severed the association between cooking and his relatives, instead coming to enjoy it all on his own. Whether that’s really the case or not, he can’t say, but he doesn’t like to think about it, either. It’s not as if cooking is _completely_ safe, after all; he often has attacks if he burns food, even a little bit, expecting to be hit around the head or maybe have his palms sliced into, healed, sliced into, healed, again and again and again until he’d rather they just cut his hands off completely.

Hermione and Ron will just do away with it and make something else for him, though, like yesterday. Never disappointed, never angry. Maybe a little sad, but he thinks they often are, these days.

He makes the omelettes he knows Hermione likes, and by the time they are finished, Ron is finally coming into the kitchen, likely stirred from sleep by the smell of the food.

Mornings are always difficult, because none of them really know what to expect. Sometimes, Harry feels excellent in the morning, but then the afternoon comes and he is curled up in the corner of the sitting room, feeling suffocated. Usually, Ron or Hermione or both of them will have to leave, though they always come back for lunch, and there is a very distinct sort of anxiety in the departure. But Harry has already taken so much from them; he doesn’t think he could bear being the reason they lost their jobs too.

They _try_ to coordinate their hours, though. This is another thing they think he doesn’t know but does, but there is no point in bringing it up because it is often a futile effort anyway. Without explaining to their department heads that Harry is unstable and can’t be alone for too long, there aren’t many valid excuses they can come up with to alter the strict schedules.

Sometimes, though, like today, he gets them both. They are rare days, but are the ones he likes best.

He told them a few weeks ago that, the next time they are both off at the same time, he wants to face the cupboard. The linen closet, rather. It used to be filled with extra sheets and towels, but it’s now completely empty, the lower shelves removed in their best attempt to imitate the structure of the cupboard under the stairs as Harry remembers it. This will be the first time they’ve used it, though, and he knows Ron and Hermione are anxious about it, worried that they will not be able to help him, that they will only make things worse. He resolved weeks ago that he would do everything in his power to keep them from feeling that way, while still entering their makeshift cupboard under the stairs as he knows is necessary to get over all of this.

They eat in silence after exchanging a proper set of “good morning”s, and Harry suspects they are all thinking about the same thing, about the trial that he keeps insisting they let him take today. But while he knows they are scared for him, he is so very sick of being the thing that makes them so miserable. Some days he can barely tell his hands from his feet, and he doesn’t think it should be Ron and Hermione’s responsibility to tell him which is which.

They tidy the kitchen together, Hermione and Harry washing and drying dishes while Ron puts them away. A quick cleaning charm has the counters and table looking spotless and then there is nothing left.

“Let’s just do it,” Harry says bracingly.

Ron and Hermione exchange one of their _looks_.

“It really ought to be gradual exposure,” Hermione worries. “I know you’ve been doing that with Healer Mallow, but this is a bit different and—”

“It’ll be okay,” he assures her, though he isn’t sure it will be. “I’ll know you guys are there, so if I need help I’ll call for you, like we said, all right?”

“And if you _can’t_ call for us?”

He shrugs. “Then, I won’t.”

She glowers at him. “Don’t you dare say that! Harry, this is really serious, this could really hurt you—”

“Or really help me!” He looks away from her, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. “I know it might not go well, but we’ll just try it, all right? And then we’ll keep trying, if we have to.”

She sighs. “I know. I just…I don’t like it. It’s not fair.”

She says that a lot. It is such a strange contrast to what he has come to know of the world, what he had to learn while his aunt and uncle showered Dudley in affection and forgot to even feed him. Or, didn’t forget, maybe. Simply chose not to, because he’s a murderer, because he ruined people’s lives, Muggle-borns be damned.

“Let’s just get it over with,” Ron suggests. “Like, er, what’s that thing you’re always saying, Hermione?”

She laughs shakily. “Like ripping off a bandage, right.”

“Still don’t get those,” Ron mutters, coming forward to wrap an arm around Harry’s shoulder as they begin their walk. Harry’s feet suddenly feel very heavy, and before he knows it he is pushing Ron away from him, stumbling to get away from the pressure of his arm.

“Sorry,” he gasps once he’s regained his footing. “I’m sorry, just, er, just don’t touch me, or—don’t, er, guide me, rather, they did that, they—”

And he stops, suddenly feeling rather foolish. Face searing, he looks away from them. “Sorry,” he says again.

“Don’t apologize,” Ron says quietly. “I should be the one apologizing.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

Harry shakes his head.

“Are you _sure_ you should be doing this?” Hermione asks desperately. “It’s okay if it’s too much. Nobody expects you to get better in a day, Harry.”

A year, though, maybe.

“I’m sure,” he manages, and then he is the one leading the way, trying to ignore the sensation of hands on his skin, wrapped so tight they leave bruises, fingernails digging into his flesh until he is bleeding again…

When they reach the cupboard, Harry braces himself and opens the door. Glancing back at Ron and Hermione, he says, “An hour?”

“We won’t lock the door,” Ron tells him. “So you can come out whenever. But if you haven’t come out by then…yeah. An hour.”

And if he is successful, next time they’ll do two. Then three. Maybe four. A part of him thinks he ought to be able to fall asleep there, that that will really tell them if he is cured, but Healer Mallow told him people weren’t meant to sleep in cupboards in the first place, so she doesn’t think he should be focussing on that.

“We’ll be right here,” Hermione says. “The whole time. All right?”

He nods. “Okay. Then…”

But suddenly, it feels a very daunting task. He knows he won’t be able to just sit through it, no matter how badly he wants to. And there is a sort of irony in it, that people call him a hero because he once walked to his death, but now it’s a cupboard that will do him in. He can’t remember the person who walked into that forest, though. They share a name, maybe even a life, but Harry is just that person’s broken remains, the small boy in the cupboard under the stairs who never did deserve love.

He can still be brave, though. Somewhere inside him, he is still a Gryffindor. They had mocked him for that, he remembers. For being a freak, unstable, weak. “Look how far the mighty have fallen,” one of them might sneer. They liked to say these things, after they broke his ribs or his jaw or his fingers, to remind him that he’s just a coward, that he deserved to die and _stay_ dead, but that he ought to suffer first. Suffer, because of all the pain he has caused them.

He wonders, sometimes, whether or not he suffered enough. Somehow, he doubts it.

Taking in a deep breath, he closes his eyes, counts up to eight then back down again. When he opens them, the cupboard is still there, but Ron and Hermione are too, hovering just behind him.

They always rescue him, he reasons. They always come for him.

And with this in mind, he finally steps inside. Allows the door to shut behind him, sinks down to the floor, dizzy from the darkness, very aware of the walls around him.

Sometimes, he wouldn’t be able to tell whether an hour or a day had passed while he was stuck inside the cupboard. They’d leave him there, sometimes, for five days or a week, would send Dudley to school with an explanation that his cousin was sick, that he gets sick often, it’s why he’s so very small. Something wrong with him, they would all say. Something broken inside him, something that makes him—what was it? No, they wouldn’t say words like “evil.” Worthless, maybe. Undeserving. A murderer. Ruins lives. Makes everything worse, just by existing.

He puts his forehead against his knees, trying to make those thoughts go away. But this is the problem with it all, the loneliness, the way their voices drift through his head. The cupboard was safe, sure. Safe from the physical pains. But it was where he always went after he did something wrong. Where they always left him to stew in the misery they would inflect on him. Oh, he could try not to, but the reminders were always there, cuts on his hands, a leg he can’t move, his head pounding fiercely.

Here, though, he is not injured. He’s fine, he reminds himself. He’s fine.

But if he lifts his head, he will see the walls closing in on him. He will hear their voices outside the door, planning what to do with him next, whether he would get to eat this time, whether he could possibly be allowed to return to the cupboard next time with all his limbs intact. The darkness is harsher than the light outside, foreboding, because he never knows when it will go away again, and he can never see their faces anyway, can never see their expressions when they pull him out again.

He curls in tighter on himself thinking about it. Someone will come soon, he knows, and the thought is terrifying. But being stuck here is so much worse, knowing what’s coming for him but not even being able to stand up. He is much too big for the cupboard, they know that, Uncle Vernon told him so before his eleventh birthday. So why did they put him back? He can’t remember, but he figures it must be bad, he can hear them talking now, about him, about how he is such a terrible burden on him, that maybe this time they’ll use the Imperius, because it is so very humiliating that he can’t throw it off anymore.

Suddenly, the air around is hot, oppressive, _stifling_. His breathing grows ragged, his throat terribly dry. He can’t cry, he reminds himself, because he is too dehydrated. He needs to save what he can, should be focussing his energy on a way out, but he knows there is none, that he will be confined to the cupboard until they really _do_ forget about him completely. Maybe they’ll move out of the house, leave him all alone to die and nobody would find him until months later, if they ever even did at all.

The wall against his back is hard, impenetrable. But when he moves away from it, feeling blindly in the dark, he is met with only another wall, too close, too close. They’re getting closer, he thinks. Shutting him in, stealing his oxygen. If he screams, someone will hear him and remove him from here, but that is the very thing he is so afraid of. This cupboard is not reprieve, but it is at least better than the belt, better than the Cruciatus. But it’s a cycle—it always starts with the cupboard, then ends with it. Sometimes he can’t even remember how he winds up there again, but he always does. “Out of sight, out mind,” his uncle might say, and Harry would do everything he could to _stay_ out of mind.

But he cannot stay here, either. His hearts is racing, palms slick with sweat. If he tries the door again, they’ll catch him and his punishment will be worse than ever. He did that once, when he was very small. Because he was hungry, because he had not eaten in days. And they had given him food, all right. So much of it that he could not keep any of it down, forced down his throat again and again while they laughed and jeered at how pathetic he was.

He feels nauseous now, just thinking about it. No, he had better not try the door. But how else can he possibly get out of this?

It is certainly hopeless. He’s thought about it countless times and never come to a conclusion. He sometimes thinks about Hermione, that she would know how to get out, but he can’t think that too long because somehow thinking about Ron and Hermione is ten times more painful than anything the Death Eaters dole out to him. Because he hurt them, he really _did_ hurt them. The Death Eaters are punishing him for their own tarnished lives, for the deaths of their comrades, but he supposes he can accept it, in some way, some form of restitution for the things he has put them through, the people he loves most. They won’t be coming for him this times, he knows. He cannot cling to the hope that they will.

He doesn’t really know when he started crying, though he kept telling himself he would not. It burns his throat, loud and ugly, and he knows even before the door opens that he’ll be in for it now. He hasn’t cried in years, _freaks don’t get to cry_.

He stumbles out of the linen closet, shaking fiercely, and then collapses down to the floor again and promptly vomits all over his own hands. He can barely even notice it, though, trying to hear anything, anything at _all_ past the roaring in his ears. The first thing he does hear is Ron’s voice, saying nothing but his name, “Harry? All right, Harry? Can you hear me, Harry?”

Desperately, he reaches up to the source of the voice. “You came,” he croaks. “You came.”

Ron kneels down beside him, apparently unbothered by the vomit on Harry’s hands as holds them tightly in his own. “Of course,” he says quietly, soothing. “Always, mate, we’ll always come.”

This only seems to make the tears worse, and he is choking back bile, or perhaps just a painful sob, clinging to Ron with the sudden fear that none of this is real, that it is just a product of his exhausted imagination.

“ _Scougify_ ,” comes another voice, low, careful. Hermione. He would recognize her voice anywhere, he thinks, and it is so very solid, so _real_. Everything else seems to fall in place slowly alongside her as she gets down too, running a gentle hand through his hair.

“It’s just us here,” he manages after a long while. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hermione says. “Just us.”

“How…how long…?”

“About thirty minutes,” Ron says, and his voice swells with some level of pride, like Harry has done something impressive.

“We wouldn’t have opened it,” Hermione says, “but we heard you crying.”

He can’t bring himself to be embarrassed about that, only grateful that they opened the door when they did.

“And, look,” Ron says. “You’re already back with us, mate. That’s gotta be worth something, right?”

“That’s true,” Hermione agrees. “And you’re letting us touch you. It could have been a lot worse.”

Harry stares ahead, though, chest twisting with conflicting feelings. The praise brings with it a sort of lightness, a reduction on the suffocating nature of the cupboard.

But then there is the guilt. There is always the guilt.

“I hate this,” he mutters. “I wish I didn’t have to put you through this.”

“Oh, Harry.” Her hand stills in his hair, then moves down to his cheek and turns his gaze towards her. She’s got that sad look on face again, the one that makes Harry hate himself for all he has done to her, to both of them. “We _want_ to help, don’t you understand? Even if you never got better…”

“We’d stay,” Ron finishes, giving his hands a reassuring squeeze. “You’re a whole third of us, mate. We’re nothing without you.”

Hermione nods empathetically. “Whatever it takes,” she says solemnly. “We promised a long time ago we’d never go away, even when things got hard. You’re still _you_ , Harry. You’re just working through something really difficult. Whatever happens, whatever you start to think or feel—we still _love_ you. But you _will_ get better, all right? We’re in this for as long as it takes. And I know you feel like this was a failure, but…it will only get easier the more we try. Okay?”

He nods, a bit dazed.

“Let’s have some tea,” Ron suggests. “Still feeling sick?”

“A bit.” He lets Ron help him to his feet, then falls against him as his legs struggle to hold his weight, tensing as his stomach turns at the movements. “A lot,” he amends.

Hermione comes to support his other side, so they are practically carrying him as they turn away from the closet and head back to the kitchen.

“Was it just anxiety?” she asks.

Hesitant, he shakes his head.

She thinks on this for a while as the two of them sit at the table and Ron steps away to put the kettle on. Then, very softly, as if not to startle him, she asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shudders, remembering the feeling that had made him so sick. Now that he has had some time to think about it, he recalls that his aunt and uncle never did that to him, that the force feeding had been a Death Eater idea and hadn’t even been in response to an attempt at escape. Sometimes this happens, where he forgets and sews two memories together, but it is very rare that he realizes it, so he offers Hermione a shaky smile.

“I think I remembered it right,” he tells her. “My aunt and uncle, they just starved me, didn’t they?”

“Is that what is was? What made you sick?”

“No.” He bites his lip, looking away from her. “Something else. I don’t think I want to talk about it, but…but I remember, it was the Death Eaters. I’m sure about that, at least.”

She leans forward and grabs his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “That’s good, Harry. Really good.”

His smile gets a little stronger, then.

“You think it’s getting better?” he presses.

“Oh, definitely.” She smiles back at him. “Three months ago, I don’t think you could’ve gotten out of there at all. You were back with us within ten minutes after you got out.”

“But I still freaked out.”

“It could’ve been a lot worse.” This is Ron, setting a tray down in the middle of the table. He prepares Harry’s tea first, and then Hermione’s, before focussing on his own. “You recognized us right away. That’s good.”

“I thought I was going to die in there,” he says, face falling again. “Like if the walls didn’t close in on me first, then I would, I dunno, starve to death.”

“Well, it’s not just a matter of being claustrophobic,” Hermione reminds him. “Really, it’s not so much a specific phobia at all, from what I understand of it all. You’re not _that_ claustrophobic, other than very specific small, dark spaces. I suppose they just don’t know much how to treat things like this, is all, but exposure therapy has worked in PTSD cases too, did you know? I read all about it. It’s quite interesting, really.”

“Only you would think that,” Harry mutters, but he finds himself rather appreciative, all the same. She has researched these things for him, he knows. Has done her best to learn what’s going on his head, so she can explain it when he doesn’t know how.

“You’ll heal from this,” she says firmly. “You really did do well today, but I think we should be more careful next time.”

“Next time?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Well, you want to do it again, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

She looks stricken. “Of course. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “I’m just joking, really, I do want to get over this. But, er…I don’t think I really want to…”

“We’ll take care of you,” Ron promises. “You can get some rest. We’ll be here all day.”

He nods, grateful. It is still not easy to admit he needs to be taken care of, but sometimes there’s really just no way around it. His head aches, and his throat sears, and all he wants to do is return to their bed, light and fluffy, everything the cupboard is not.

He can rest easy, as long as Ron and Hermione are near. After all, he knows they’ll look after him. They always do.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx
> 
> (p.s. catch me on twitter [@laphicets](https://twitter.com/laphicets) or tumblr [@kohakhearts](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com) for writing updates. i also sometimes take writing requests on both!)


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